


what I was living for all along

by millijayne13



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Sad with a Happy Ending, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27189238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millijayne13/pseuds/millijayne13
Summary: Request: hiii!! congrats on 1.25 k!! i wanted to request a draco x reader with angst prompts 4, 12, & 13 and the secret relationship trope! also if it could end with a happy ending too. thank uuu 🥺💕 - anon
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Original Female Character(s), Draco Malfoy/Reader
Kudos: 42





	what I was living for all along

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr @iliveiloveiwrite
> 
> Feedback is so important so please leave a comment and a kudos if you enjoyed!

**“I like being able to wake up with you,”** are the first words you hear upon opening your eyes in the morning.

Your hair is strewn all over the pillow and you left arm rests above your head as you lie flat on your back. Turning your head, you meet the bright grey eyes of Draco, a sleepy smile already on his face.

You smile as you shuffle to face him, “I like waking up to you too. You should do it more often.”

He rubs his eyes; ridding them of sleep. He hums at your words, “I might just have to. I always sleep better by your side.”

You roll your eyes, “You sleep anywhere; doesn’t matter where I am.”

Draco stutters indignantly, “I do not! I much prefer sleeping by your side.”

He gathers you in his arms; beginning to press kisses to your hair, face and neck as you start to laugh wildly.

He had come over late last night; his shift at St. Mungo’s finishing close to midnight. He had let himself in with the spare key you gave him for situations like this, and he had crawled into bed with you, wrapping you up in his arms and pressing a kiss to your head before nodding off.

You only wished he would do that in public; be so open with his affection and your relationship.

As your laughter dies, you ask, “What time are you leaving for work today?”

He checks the clock on your bedside table, “I have a few hours before I’m needed at work. Why?”

You fiddle with your fingers, “I was wondering if you wanted to go out for breakfast? There’s a small café down the road and it’s owned by muggles. I just thought it would make a nice change from cooking.”

Draco sighs; settling his head atop his arm, “Love…”

You sigh, “I know, I know. Like I said, I thought it would make a nice change and we wouldn’t know anyone, and they wouldn’t know us.”

He brings his arms back to circle around you as he places another kiss to your cheek; this one reeking of apologies. “I’m sorry, darling, but-”

“It’s too risky,” You finish; pulling away from him and getting out of bed. You wrap your discarded cardigan around your body; having picked it up from where you had thrown it last night before falling asleep.

Draco sits up in bed; his mouth already forming more apologies. The quilt slips down to his waist; leaving him distractingly shirtless as he repeats his earlier words.

You shake your head; brushing off his apologies and brushing away any inappropriate thoughts. You smile at the blonde-haired man though its weak and slightly watery. “Never mind,” You start, “We’ll have breakfast here.”

Draco reaches a hand out for you to take. With a large smile, he tugs you back down onto the bed. “I’m all for breakfast,” He starts; leaning down to brush his nose against his, “But you’ve forgotten something.”

Any and all earlier frustrations with this man fade away as you gaze into his grey eyes; filled with love for you and a thousand apologies for why the relationship is a secret. You feel you perhaps give in too easy, but when Draco looks at you like that, you find it hard to remember why you were angry in the first place.

You smile as you brush your nose against his, “What on earth could I have forgotten?”

A large smile breaks across his face as he sees that he’s been forgiven for now. He braces himself on his elbows as he leans over you. “This,” He murmurs before finally kissing you for the first time today.

You smile into the kiss as your hand reaches up to cradle his jaw. For now, you were happy to forget your state of unhappiness as Draco’s body presses you further into the mattress. It would be brought up later, no doubt. It would be discussed as the voice in the back of your head reminds of your insecurities surrounding the relationship on a whole.

However, for now, you were happy to have this moment with him. Almost collecting all the moments you could should anything happen. All ideas of breakfast and secret relationships are quickly forgotten in the state of wandering mouths and hands.

\-------

In the beginning, the secrecy was part of the thrill of the honeymoon period. Sneaking off at posh functions or friend’s houses to share a kiss in an empty room; lingering touches across shoulders as you passed one another at work. It set your heart racing immediately; wanting nothing more than to pull him into an empty room and not leave for a few hours.

Six months in and the novelty has long since worn off. It makes you feel unsettled and it has you questioning the future of your relationship.

The argument starts like it always does; you gently bring up the subject of going public – stating that enough time has passed since the war for a target not to be on either of your backs.

It develops as it always does: Draco starts to shake his head before you’ve even finished your sentence. “Love,” He starts, “You know why we haven’t gone public. I don’t want to risk your life and I don’t want to ruin your reputation by having you associated with me.”

You frown at his words, scoffing, “Draco, if I was worried about my reputation being sullied I wouldn’t have said yes when you asked me to dinner, and I certainly wouldn’t have said yes when you asked me to stay the night.”

A brief smile flashes on Draco’s face as he remembers that night, but it’s gone as quick as it came, shaking his head once more. He strides over to you; taking your face in both hands as he urges you to look into his eyes, “Yes, the war is over and it has been for well over a year, but Death Eaters are out there, and my family is still hated. If anything happened to you because of me, I would never forgive myself.”

You begin to soften at his words; hearing the truth in them and understanding them completely. His fears were well founded; the war had barely been over for eighteen months – your relationship having started six months ago, and his family were only beginning to repair their tattered reputation, but your feelings on the matter could no longer be ignored.

“I hate feeling like a dirty secret, Draco,” You whisper; tears starting to line your eyes, pulling away from his touch.

“You are not my dirty secret. I thought we were fine, I thought we were doing okay,” Draco declares; his voice loud in the quiet room.

“ **Stop pretending like everything is fine** when it isn’t! Draco, you barely even look my way when we’re in a room together with other people. You don’t even initiate contact when we’re among friends. It’s hard living like that, Draco. It’s hard and it’s draining.”

Draco has the gall to look ashamed of himself as your words land; each with a poisonous barb latching onto his skin, urging him to see the truth of your relationship and how it was affecting you.

You hold a hand to your stomach as a sob loosens from your lips, “ **I don’t want to feel this way anymore. All I wanted was a happy ending** with the man I love, and my chances of that are looking to be so slim.”

His heart begins to tear at your words. “What does this mean for us?” He asks; voice no higher than a whisper. He refuses to acknowledge the pit in his stomach until you’ve given him an answer; he didn’t want this to end; he didn’t want you to leave him. If he could, he would be by your side every hour of the day.

If there’s one thing he sorely regrets, it is ever suggesting to keep your relationship a secret. How could he have done something like that? How could he have willingly chosen to keep you hidden away when you love him so openly and freely whenever you’re together; when you’ve shown no shame to hold his hand and to kiss his lips.

You don’t deign him worthy enough of a reply. You simply stare at him as the tears continue to roll down your face as if they were answer enough.

“What does this mean for us?” Draco asks again; his voice shaking with fear now. He’s terrified you’ve reached the end of your tether; that you’re ready to pack it all in and truthfully, he understands why you would be.

He’s made a mistake. He’s made thousands of mistakes over the course of his twenty plus years on this earth, but this – keeping his love for you a secret is his biggest.

He knows that now.

You swallow past the lump that has formed in your throat; shrugging your shoulder as you whisper. “I don’t know,” You sniffle before continuing, “Draco, I love you, but I don’t know if I can stay in a relationship that’s kept a secret. I want to be able to go out on dates or kiss you or hold your damn hand! I want to be with you, but I can’t take the secrecy any longer.”

Draco begins to chew on the inside of his cheek; letting your words settle as he thinks them over.

Truthfully, he’s had his answer since you started crying. He knew you never wholly liked the secrecy of your relationship after the first month; you were happy to keep it quiet then should it not work out, but after that, he could see you wonder why nothing had happened in terms of telling friends and family.

If he had to be ultimately honest with you, he was terrified, but he didn’t know how to tell you. He didn’t know how to phrase it correctly with the right words to make you understand just how scared he is of the post Second Wizarding War world and what it means for people like him trying to repent for sins that were his family’s own doing, but he had little hand in.

Those first months after the war when the wounds were still fresh, and the nightmares were still vivid; he wished and wished for someone like you. He hoped that he would find someone to help him through it, not for him to rely on entirely for his healing, but for someone to help him through it and to be there through the bad days when Draco struggles to leave his bed – overcome with the weight of his actions.

He had to ask you to repeat yourself when you accepted his dinner date offer; he almost had to clear out his ears and shake his head to make sure he heard you right when a smile broke over your face

Six months later, with you by his side through the continuation of his healing, he couldn’t want anyone else. However, the fear. The pure, unadulterated fear that Draco has known since he was sixteen years old and being branded with a mark he didn’t truly know the depth of, hasn’t left him. It hasn’t left him, and it’s that fear that had him hiding away your relationship. He kept it hidden from view on account of not wanting it to be poisoned by public perception, but he never realised it would be the secrecy to taint the relationship.

It hits him all of a sudden; exactly what he has put you through on account of his own fears. It hits him so suddenly that he rocks back from you, sitting down on the couch so abruptly you briefly wonder whether he’s collapsed.

“Draco?” You ask; concern lacing your voice.

He turns his face to you; grey eyes wide and bright with unshed tears, “How have you stayed this long?”

“What?”

He takes a deep breath before repeating his words, “How have you stayed this long? How have you loved me this long when I’ve put you through all of that?”

You take a seat beside Draco on the couch; stretching a hand out towards him. You shrug your shoulders as you answer, “I suppose it’s because two months after we started dating, I realised that I was falling in love with you pretty quickly and I didn’t want to lose that. I didn’t want to lose you.”

“I’ve been so awful to you…” He whispers; self-loathing stirring through his veins.

You shake your head; adamantly denying this claim, “You have not. Draco, you’re nothing but wonderful and I love you so very much. I’m sure you’re what I’ve been waiting for all my life; the love that you only hear about in fairytales, but Draco, darling, I want to love you without restraint and in front of our friends and family. Why should we hide this?”

Draco wipes away the tears that have fallen with his free hand; his self-hatred high as he turns to face you, “Can you ever forgive me?”

“For what?”

“For keeping this a secret,” He starts to rant, “For being too damn scared of what the magical community thinks of me to not see that I have someone who loves me for me and is willing to hide themselves away for that reason. For being so terrified of you getting hurt when I know you’re more than capable of defending yourself. For being such a coward for not telling you that I love you earlier because I do. I love you and I am sorry for being so stupidly self-obsessed for not telling people, namely my parents, about you sooner.”

You let out a single laugh as he finishes speaking, his chest heaving. Fresh tears fall down your cheeks as his words sink into your skin, “You love me?”

He had never said the words outright; you had been so open with your feelings since you realised them, and you knew from the beginning that Draco would have trouble communicating exactly how he felt about you. To hear the words out loud – it feels like a balm spreading over your skin.

Your problems were far from solved, but you had one answer to one question that had been plaguing your mind as of recent.

Draco nods; answering your question. “I should have told you sooner, I’ve known for weeks - maybe even months - how I felt about you.”

You shake your head, “Draco, you don’t need to outright tell me you love me, you show me nearly all the time. All I’m asking is for you to show me in public.”

Draco nods once again, “Let’s do it. Let’s tell everyone; my parents, your parents, our friends, our bosses. I’ll show them all how much I adore you.”

“You will?”

He smiles softly at you, “If I had to choose between a public relationship with you or the possibility of not waking up tomorrow to you lying by my side, I will always choose the option with you there.”

Your bottom lip begins to wobble, but Draco reaches out and brushes your cheek before any tears can fall. “It’s only been six months, but I see us being in it for the long haul. I don’t want to risk losing you.”

A small smile makes its way across your face as you lean into Draco’s touch, “I don’t want to lose you either.”

It was going to take time; it was going to take a lot of hard work and effort from the both of you, but what relationship didn’t? It was all going to be worth it; it was what you were both living for – the other, moulding your life to fit them in as seamlessly as possible.

Draco realises how close he came to losing you today, and if losing you meant he felt even a fraction of what he felt when the possibility of you leaving him came up, he never wants to experience it. The pain of losing you overrides his fear of reactions and reputations; his love for you overrides his fear of placing a target of your back because he would always be by your side to protect you from harm.

Tentatively, he wraps an arm around your shoulder. He lets himself relish the elation that pulses through him as you lean into his touch, nuzzling your face into his shoulder as you shuffle closer to him on the couch. “I have an idea,” He whispers; pressing his face into your hair and inhaling the comforting smell of your green apple shampoo.

“That is?”

“We invite everyone round; we have a dinner party where we tell everyone about us.”

You shift; tilting your face up to his, “Really? You would do that?”

He chuckles, rubbing his free hand across the back of his neck, “Honestly, I’d do just about anything for you. And I realised you were right, it’s time we tell people so what do you think? A dinner party for our news?”

You smile widely up at the man who so quickly won your heart and would never give it back – not that you wanted it back. You were more than happy for him to keep your heart should he keep loving you just as fiercely.

“Let’s hold a dinner party,” You confirm; heart beginning to race at the smile that breaks across Draco’s face at the sound of your words.

It would be okay, you think. As you gaze into Draco’s eyes to see the future lined up there, you felt certain it would all work out.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!
> 
> Please leave a comment and a kudos if you enjoyed!!
> 
> Tumblr: @iliveiloveiwrite


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